Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I by K. Panikian (top android ebook reader txt) 📕

in a smooth move. The psoglav jumped at Theo and I caught it mid-air, my quarrel slamming into its gaping, canine mouth. It fell into the snow, jerking, and I turned and ran again for the ridge. I pushed my thigh muscles and staggered up the slope, panting.

I dropped at the top and rolled a little way down the other side before catching myself and clambering back to the top. Owen and Julian were on the ridge and Theo was most of the way up the slope. I didn’t see anything else in the cave entrance.

As soon as Theo dropped at my side again, I lit my fingertip spark and threw it at the Greek fire, whistling harshly to push it all the way there. It hit the black patch of snow and the glade exploded.

I closed my eyes instinctively and then clapped my hands over my ears an instant too late. I covered my head when debris starting falling around me. When I opened my eyes again, the cave was gone. Rocks, small and large, littered the glade, smoking. There were bloody pieces of besy everywhere.

My ears rang and I turned my head slowly to check on the guys. I saw glassy eyes and shocked faces on everyone. I didn’t know what to do. I’d been expecting a large ball of fire and a fight, not this destruction. Well, the ten besy in the cave were definitely dead. So, I decided to call it a win.

I stood and carefully made my way back down the ridge into the glade. The snow was gray and slushy now; in some patches I saw down to bare earth. I stepped over a hairy, ape-like arm on the ground.

Someone touched my arm beside me and I jumped. I still couldn’t hear anything through my ringing ears. Owen was there and he mouthed with exaggerated movements at me, “Good job.” I smiled and then Julian picked me up from the other side and spun me around in the air. I grinned at him.

We would need to collect all the bes pieces, I knew, and burn them. For the moment though, I merely surveyed the destruction. I found Theo a few feet away and gave him a thumbs up. His Greek fire had been incredibly potent. I would have to tell Zasha she was right; we had been making a bomb.

I looked around at the devastation and hoped that no other creatures had been calling that cave a home. It was obliterated.

The sky was almost dark now. I sighed and started picking up the pieces of bauks and psoglavs I could see near me. The guys bent and started doing the same.

AN hour later, in the full dark, I felt reasonably sure we’d found everything. The pile ended up being smaller than I expected. The bomb must have disintegrated most of them. We were wearing headlamps to see; Julian had gone back down to the snow machines to grab them, plus my handy container of gasoline.

I lit the pile of body parts and backed away. I whistled the fire strong and hot and after a few minutes, a pile of ashes lay in the snow. I was getting better and better at whistling that element. I felt proud of myself.

We trudged back down the icy stream bed for the last time and loaded ourselves onto the snow machines again. I was tired and my head was aching a little. I resisted the urge to lean against Owen’s broad back as he steered us down the trail.

When we reached the side trail to the meteor impact site, however, Theo and Julian’s sled stopped. Theo climbed off and tossed his helmet to the side. “Hurry,” he said, “we need to get to the crater. Right now.”

He took off into the trees, not bothering with snowshoes and I jumped off my machine too and followed him, Julian and Owen close behind. We slogged down the trail, stumbling in the deep snow.

Finally, we reached the edge of the crater and Theo motioned us down into the snow. “Watch,” was all he said.

We settled in, eyes on the clearing, and waited. We didn’t wait long.

Out of the trees on the opposite side of the clearing came three todorats, their hooves stomping; a balachko, its three heads turning this way and that; and a tall bes with long, sharp horns dressed in a mail coat, carrying a sword. It was obviously the leader, the one Theo said was angry at being in our world.

I was afraid. We were not ready for this fight, I knew. I shrank lower in the snow.

They climbed down into the crater and moved to its center. The leader held up his sword and it pulsed in the clearing. No, not the sword, I decided. It was a rock embedded in its crossguard that was pulsing. After a large burst of blue lit the clearing, an opening appeared. The edges glowed the same blue as the last pulse of magic and through the gateway, I could see another clearing, full of fresh snow.

The bes leader and his band stepped into the gateway and vanished. The blue winked out.

The portal. The rock opened the portal. The portal could be opened again? “How?” I asked out loud.

“I will tell you,” a voice answered from behind me.

Chapter 19

I spun around. A young man stood behind me. He looked like a college kid. He was thin and wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, no coat; his shock of blond-white hair was disheveled. He slouched a little, and in his eyes, I saw the night sky with its myriad stars.

“I am Mesyats,” he said.

“The Moon God,” I whispered, awed.

“Yes, I am the moon. I am worshipped all over the world, though not always by this name or in this avatar.

“I have been watching you four. You have been stumbling around in these woods, not doing much good. But tonight,” he paused, “tonight was good. I have decided to help you.”

His